By Peter Ulrich

Taqaharu’s Leaving

In January 1990, Peter Ulrich booked into Woodbine Street Recording Studios (Leamington Spa, England) for his first solo studio session to record two tracks with producer John A Rivers who he had met during the recording of Dead Can Dance albums ‘Spleen and Ideal’ and ‘Within the Realm of a Dying Sun’.

‘Taqaharu’s Leaving’ had been written in 1986 and previously demo-ed in Brendan Perry’s home studio in London, but for ‘Evocation’ he only had a bag-full of hand drums and percussion and a few outline ideas kicking around in his head. With invaluable contributions from Chuck and Angela Silverman (vocals), Ruth Watson (oboe) and former Dead Can Dance compatriate John Singleton (trombone), the pieces came together very smoothly and spontaneously.

The resultant tracks were released in May 1990 in 12″ vinyl, picture-sleeve, single format – the one and only ever release on Peter’s own Cornerstone label! It was a limited edition of 2,500 but several hundred of these were subsequently destroyed in a warehouse flood. The single has since been listed as a collectible rarity by Record Collector magazine in the UK.

While this release may be of interest to collectors and vinyl junkies, it should be noted that exactly the same versions of these tracks appear on the Pathways and Dawns album released on Projekt in 1999 (CD format only)